Lets Meet New Mariner Chris Taylor

After the season long struggles from Brad Miller, Mariners decided to call up Chris Taylor and give him some time.

In the fifth round of the 2012 draft, the Seattle Mariners drafted a 6 foot, 1 inch short stop/second basemen from the University of Virginia.

Taylor attending Cox High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia where he was named the Virginia AAA State player of the year in 2009 because he hit .444 with 24 stolen bases and 30 runs.

Chris Taylor began his professional career in the Mariners rookie level, but it didn’t last and he was promoted to Class A shortly after. In 49 games, he put a .322/.417/.432 triple slash with 12 doubles, 2 home runs and 22 RBIs while adding 17 stolen bases.

In his first full season as a professional, Taylor started for the High Desert Mavericks and was again promoted to the AA Jackson Generals. He hit a combined .314 in 138 games. He tallied 165 hits, which was 8th best in minor leagues, with 28 doubles, 8 home runs, 38 stolen bases and 60 RBIs.

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In 2014, Taylor had an invitation to spring training. He played in 20 games, tacking 3 hits for a .125 average and was sent to AAA Tacoma to start the 2014 season.

If it wasn’t for an injury, we would have seen Taylor at the big club a lot sooner than we did.

For the Tacoma Rainers, Chris had 99 hits, 22 of those were doubles, 7 triples, and 14 stolen bases. His triple slash for his time with the Rainers was .328/.397/.497.

On July 24th of this year, Taylor was promoted to the Seattle Mariners to replace Willie Bloomquist who was put on the disabled list.

On the same night, Chris Taylor recorded his first major league hit off of Wei-Yin Chen of the Baltimore Orioles.

In his 9 games with the Mariners, he has recorded 10 hits in 28 at bats. He has had one of the best at bats from anyone on the Mariners this year. Earlier in the week he was up at the plate and quickly fell behind in the count 0-2. He fouled off a few tough pitches while watching some even better, closer pitches for balls. With the count full he smacked a line drive up the middle for a base hit.

With the quick success of a Brad Miller and a James Jones we should be cautious when thinking we have found the future at a certain position. Both Brad and James started off well and after pitches made some adjustments they began to struggle, and struggle bad.

Chris Taylor might be different, he has the tools, he can hit both left and right handed pitchers. He can field his position, making some exceptional plays and has a strong arm.

We will have to wait and see before we crown Taylor the short stop of the future, he is going to have to make adjustments on the fly, something his predecessor failed to do. As a fan, I am rooting for him, hope he is here for a long time.